Comments on: Music radio? Is anybody listening anymore?

Has the withering of "free" over-the-air music radio proved music is worthless? With Sirius's stock hovering around fifty cents, will commercial-free music satellite radio suffer the same fate?

[jimbo2150]

Pandora all the way!

[hapygirl]

I listed to music online (pandora), xm radio and traditional FM radio. I believe there's still music to be heard the old fashioned (radio) way.

[paul_psmith]

Pandora with home computer or Squeezebox. Waiting for BB client. Listen to radio in the car on way to work. That is where i get my news from. but I live in the Chicago area so we have good NPR and Classical stations.

If i want music in the car, I have a few hundred tunes on the BB and I just plug it into the car stereo.

Won't pay $12.95 per month for radio. That's just plain crazy. That's another $156 a year into my IRA...

[minimalist]

People haven?t stopped listening to music. It?s just that 95% the traditional channels that used to deliver that music have become so over commercialized and calculated that the music loving kids have moved on (as have I as an adult). Now we hundreds of interesting streaming internet radio stations to choose from and we have the hybrid on-demand/recommendation systems like Pandora.com and LastFM.com if we want to create a custom ?station? to fit our mood. I listen to streaming internet radio every day and that (along with podcasts and good review sites on the net) is my primary source of discovering new acts. When in the car it?s my iPod (or sometimes my iPhone streaming internet radio through 3G). You could disconnect my FM and AM radio and I simply wouldn?t care. And satellite radio is not that much better than terrestrial radio. I doubt I would listen to it even if it was free. It?s not the price, it?s the lack of content. I think the future of great radio is definitely the net.

[jakebala]

answering your question about howard stern and sirius stock.

not 100% sure but i know when he was brought on to do his own show they gave him a lot of incentives including stock options. which basically means he gets stock for free every year and more stock based on how well his show performs.

well, basically what howard stern did was he took all the stock he got. which was a good amount. and sold it as soon as he got it. something that is looked down upon b/c he should want to hold the stock so if it performs well he would make money. so the bad news was that howard was already pushing down the price by selling off his stock.

anyway, satellite radio is not worth it. i would never pay 13 a month for satellite radio. i listen to internet radio at work and fm in the car to and from work. if i'm at home i would not put on the radio. the only way i would want to get satellite is if i drove tons of miles. like 3-4 hrs a day. or cross-country, etc.

[Kev_Orng]

I love music radio, I just don't like DJs. But I also like talk radio, go figure.

These days my car radio preset 1 is CBC radio, and the rest are the various clear FM bands that give me the best reception on my iPod transmitter. I have 2 AM stations preset for the traffic reports in the two cities I'm most often in.

It might not have gone that way if music DJs weren't more obnoxious than commercials. Those guys are teh suck.

[lrf2005]

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[dascha1]

When I have a net connection it's AccessMusicNetwork.com - no Scary tactics, just plain ol' good times and entertaining to help give a jump-start to my day, and at work!

Since gas prices have jumped, I've resorted from my Satellite Radio with Voice Recognition in the Chevy Suburban to an older mini-van that plays cassette tapes.

[kluups]

MTV did not give up on music because kids are not interested but because they're no longer interested.

"Then again, when you're not paying for music, it proves it's not worth anything. No wonder even "free" music on the radio can't hold its own anymore. It's worth less than zero..."

No my friend, the free music on the radio can't hold its own because it is utter crap. And free crap is still just that. The music and interest in it is very much alive it's just that now we (and especially kids) don't have to put up with the way it used to be served. With the plethora of content delivery options, be it sat radio, media player, phone, or internet, the traditional radio is on life support and... good riddance. It wasn't much fun while it lasted, and now it is finally over.

Personally I jumped on the XM bandwagon when it arrived and yes, it costs me ~$200/yr between one in my house and one in the car, but unlike the "free" FM dial, it actually serves the music as opposed to commercials with a few musical interruptions. And never mind the content of those interruptions which as I recall mostly induced vomiting. I can only hope that this musical bliss will last a while longer before they too turn to the same great and "free" business model (which it eventually will I'm sure, especially after that stupid merger).

[Grumpypaul]

As a grumpy old man I have no particular use for any pay radio system or any commercial radio. I'm a public radio guy or nothing. CD's fill in whenever I need anything I can't find on the dial. I have NO use for Stern or Opie and Dopie or any of that ilk. Unlike many others I am not a sports fan so that feature doesn't tempt me either.

As for satellite radio offering a viable option, my only experience is the package that I get with my DirecTV and I find those channels to be less than appealing. The ones that play the music I enjoy are filled with yammering "DJ's" that feel the need to fill in the spaces between the music. I am also finding that even satellite radio has playlists. Listening over enough time I find they work out of the same milk crate of CD's. After a while all I hear are the same old selections by the same old bands. The horizons appear to be limited. Just like the land based radio stations around here seem to play quite a few of artist A, where the nearby station looking to gather the same audience plays quite a few of artist B and very little, if any, of artist A, the satellite options limit their programming to similar choices.

However, just like cable TV, I expect that after a while the airwaves will be cluttered with commercial satellite stations. Once "free" channels will start with "sponsors" that will degenerate into commercials, just as the former "American Movie Classics" now AMC did. And we'll have the privilege of paying for it too!

[ennev]

The closest I'm getting to radio theses days is by getting podcast of some show on the Canadian cbc and bbc. Through radio wave ? not much anymore!

[alegr]

I only listen to radio in the car. Used to listen to KMZT, but they switched to HD radio, which I don't have. When I'm riding with my kid, I have to endure those rock music stations. I have no problem with rock music, if only those stations didn't air the same crap as 3 years ago hundredth time again and again.

[scarlsonnyc]

I'm another grumpy old man and it seems to me like the oldies stations are the best music on radio.

Is it just me?

Every generation bonds to the contemporary music on the radio. But what I see is: for the last generation much of the music has been so poor that it is difficult to bond with it.

Commercial-free satellite radio on subscription is a great idea. I wish I had a car, it'd be in there.

I think when someone comes up with a better quality of music (like the Beatles did) kids will bond and pay for music again.

As for me, I carry my iPhone 3G loaded with "oldies but goodies."

[alegr]

Much of music of ANY generation is so poor that's difficult to bond with it. Only very little percent of that is left as "oldies but goldies". At any given time. Be it Mozart or Beethoven time.

[thefunksobruva]

Just saw an MSNBC piece mentioning how lucky we are in Maryland to get WTMD (public radio, "Radio for Music People"). http://wtmd.blogspot.com/2008/10/wtmd-on-msnbccom.html

I listen all the time! Between that and NPR stations, I'm set.

Love Pandora, but blocked at work, so I listen to WTMD online, or sub.fm or rinse.fm. (until they block those too, I guess...)

[mgarc1125]

Pandora

[pinellasproofer]

I used to drive 1 hour to get to work, and Sirius was a lifesaver. Now that I only drive 30 minutes, it's more of a luxury item. I listen to Howard Stern and sports talk more than music, but Lithium ('90s grunge) is better than anything on free radio. I'm mature enough to hear cuss words and immature enough to want to hear them. The fight against government/corporate censorship is worth supporting.

[audiotruth]

I would be crushed by a loss of Internet radio. AM/FM radio has been utterly abysmal for years, playing the same 50 songs over and over and over per any given format.
And the sound quality of Sirius and XM are terrible, far worse than even typical FM stations.

But listening to Shoutcast stations on Winamp is amazing. Endless content, always lots of new content, and mp3 sound quality. Stations like Groove Salad, Radio Nigel, Morow, Club 977, SKY FM, SmoothJazz, are all simply wonderful. And you can do alot by supporting these stations with a couple of bucks per month.
If you haven't experienced Shoutcast stations on Winamp, give it a whirl. Start somewhere at about $60 and up for a set of 2.1 speakers or about $85 and up for 5.1 speakers.... you will be amazed.

[nowimcool]

Stern's contract is up in about two years ... he got enough money from that deal to retire very comfortably! My prediction is he won't renew his contract (even though he says he loves sat radio - he has to say that!), people will leave satellite radio by the masses (the Sirius subs anyway) and sat. radio will die a slow death.

I do have a sirius radio, and I love it ... but I can't see it being viable.

To my knowledge the Canadian Sirius (which is seperate from SiriusXM and XM Canada) is the only sat. radio company that is currently in the black ... but that means nothing if siriusxm goes broke.

[rdinocco]

I'm a big Slacker.com fan....I find most of my new music there, and they rarely interrupt the music with self promotion.

[vrette]

The only reason I have XM is to listen to the comedy channels in the car. Unfortunately, those channels aren't commercial free, so I'm essentially paying to listen to commercials about "enlarging that special part" or "surprising my lover with a new gift." XM has a nice variety of music channels, but the compression makes them sound like crap. I ended up telling XM that I wasn't renewing for these reasons last go round, and they reduced the payment to $6.50 a month. Quite frankly, I don't think it is worth it at even this reduced price.

[betomiller]

I listen to Internet Radio every time I need to center myself and distance from the constant barrage of advertising on commercial radio. XM doesn't interest me.